Irony
Fill er up
Anyone notice how cheap gasoline has become in the first 11 days of 2007? Me neither! But the price of a barrel of oil is down 15%. Funny when oil goes up $.50 a barrel it rises at the pump in minutes. GOUGING!! By who? Funny this article doesn’t mention Exxon just OPEC. And if that isn’t clear enough OPEC is the one getting less per barrel and Exxon is the one still charging the same per gallon. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070111/bs_nm/markets_oil_dc_33 I don’t mean to pick on Exxon lets just say oil pigs. Now after talking to a gentleman at the Exxon Valdez Restoration Trust I find that Exxon has still not settled with the fisherman and local people who work or worked in the fish processing business for their damages claim almost 18 years later by playing in the courts an original judgment of $4.5 billion has been whittled down to $2.5 billion and as of this moment neither side has yet to appeal. Some of the plaintiffs and their attorney’s will never be paid for they have died. pjc
Photographic Art
Ah yes, the dreaded gas price phenomenon. I did a little research into this and I’m reminded of when Congress brought the oil execs before them and said, “We’ll be watching you” as they discussed why, in the midst of out-of-control oil prices, the oil companies were showing record profits never seen before. Well, I understand supply and demand and so I’ll cut them a little slack…just a little. The real eye-opener came for me when I saw who was actually getting the highest percentage of the profits from the oil prices going up. It’s not the oil companies or the executives. It’s none other than our very own government. While oil companies may see five to ten cents per gallon profit, our government sees closer to twenty cents and even much higher than that. And, truth be told, if you really want to know where the profit is, the oil industry’s profitability remained below the profit margins of other industries such as banking, pharmaceuticals, real estate, and household and personal products. That doesn’t mean I have any sympathy for the oil cronies in Bush’s back pocket but we do need to consider other industries as well. All that being said, I have to wonder how many congressman and senators are on the payroll of oil companies. For congress to tell the oil execs that they are watching them makes me think that the only thing they are “watching” is how much their own bank accounts will grow because of rising oil prices. For Congress to threaten oversite on the oil industries is like having a porn star in charge of the vestal virgins…the bottom line is that eventually they all get screwed.
on occasion, i’ve felt a vague sense of shame parking at the willimantic food co-op in a jeep cherokee. there was consolation in the knowledge that anyone nearby silently condemning me had never spent a winter with my treacherous 400′ hillside driveway.
that’s my rationalization. i wonder what rationalization the owner of the hummer uses?